1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed toward an exercise apparatus and, more particularly, toward an apparatus for facilitating proper execution of a situp.
2. Background Art
For many years, a person wishing to exercise his abdomen by performing situps would do so by lying with his back on the floor, his knees bent, his feet flat and secured to on the floor and his hands behind his head with his elbows sticking forward. The person would then lift his head and shoulders using his abdomen muscles to the point where his elbows touched his knees. This form of executing situps was found to put undue stress on a person's back, resulting in discomfort and, sometimes, injury.
Subsequently, "crunch-type" situps or "crunches" became widely used. This type of situp was executed in the same manner as the traditional situp, except the person would raise his head and shoulders a limited distance, for example, six inches, off the ground and then return to the starting position. This type of situp, while relieving the stress on the back, was found not to optimize the exercise on the abdomen as a person would often achieve additional leverage by pulling his head toward his chest by the use of his hands behind his head.
Health professionals and exercise consultants then recommended that people perform crunches with their arms extended parallel to and lengthwise of their body and then lifting their head and shoulders a prescribed distance to execute the situp. Health professionals and exercise consultants determined that for an adult the optimum distance to move the hands forward was four and one half inches and for a child the distance was three inches. Further, such a procedure is used not only for exercise, but for testing. However, if these "crunches" are not consistently performed, medical personnel cannot reliably compare test results with results from previous tests on the same person, or with other tests performed by other persons.
Heretofore, the prior art has failed to provide a satisfactory device for ensuring that such crunches be consistently performed as desired. For example, one method typically used has been to position a person flat on the floor with their arms extended and then place a piece of tape on the floor four and one half inches from the person's fingertips. However, this method has numerous disadvantages. First, placing tape on some floors is highly undesirable (for example, the tape may not stay in place on carpeted floors, and on tile floors may be difficult to remove). Second, if the person does not slide their fingertips along the floor, they may miss the tape and "crunch" too far. However, if they do slide their fingertips on the floor, they will typically both irritate their fingers (particularly on carpeted floors) and get very dirty hands. Third, the person will often slides along the floor to some degree while they do the "crunches", so that the tape will no longer be positioned precisely four and one half inches from the person's fingertips at the beginning of those "crunches", with the result being that many of the "crunches" will not be correct.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems discussed above.